Two artworks that show “This Is What Mental Illness Stigma Exploitation Looks Like”
This brief article is about an artwork that literally shows the viewer what exploitation of mental illness stigma looks like. The artwork arises from an artist-placed document that also shows what exploitation of mental illness looks like.
“Artist-Placed Public Document Number 2 (Federal Complaint, Mental Illness Exploitation, Civil Rights and Constitutional Rights Violations)” is a physical, traditional artwork created in 2025. See above photo. This is the artwork that is the focus on this article. In turn, it is comprised of pages from a physical complaint that was written and filed by the artist in Federal Court in Maine in February 2025.
The artwork consists of text on paper, fabric tape, and varnish on canvas. Its approximate dimensions are 80 inches by 58 inches, or roughly 8 feet by 5 feet. The underlying complaint consists of 113 pages of text on paper and now exists in the nationwide PACER court docketing system of the United States Courts. PACER is open and available to the general public.
In other words, the artwork in the photo above, which sounds in traditions of conceptual art, post-conceptual art, and post-minimalism, is comprised of pages of pure text-based art — here, in the form of a legally valid formal Complaint filed by the artist in a Federal District Court in 2025.
The Complaint, and the work arising from it, in the photo above, contains direct quotes from emails, letters, and formal court filings written by two defendants who were both lawyers. For eight years, from 2017 through 2024, the two lawyer-defendants sent their written words — constituting over 177 false statements about a person’s mental illness disability — to court officers, judges, and a state court system.
Through these artworks —meaning, both the Complaint as filed, as well as the piece shown above — the viewer is provided with the opportunity to consider, in two different mediums, a visual and textual record of what mental illness disability exploitation actually looks like. And what the exploitation of societal stigma about mental illness actually looks like.
The physical details of the artwork also demonstrate and establish this for the viewer to consider and interpret, including the sheer size necessary to manifest the piece; the small 2-point font required to fit all the pages of all the allegations of facts; and the totality of the number of pages required to present to the viewer each of the 177 individual and cumulative false statements about mental illness. Each and together, the physical realities necessary to create the artwork further illustrate the extent and scale of this particular example of mental illness exploitation that lasted over eight years.
The artworks — both the Complaint as-filed, as well as the piece shown in the photo above, make visible for the viewer what is typically hidden; what is typically impossible to see; and what is thereby normally so easy to be perpetrated and denied. But now, here, through the as-filed Complaint, and also through its subsequent manifestation as the more traditional artwork described in this article, the viewer — any member of the public — can now see, consider, and interpret for themselves, what mental illness disability exploitation can literally look like.
The artworks — both the Complaint filed, as well as the piece that is the topic of this article, each reflect two elements of the artist’s practice. The first element is the creation and placement of public documents by the artist as a form of art activism and advocacy. This is the second such piece placed by the artist; the first was in 2023. The second element is the use of text-based performance art as a form of activist art. The act of filing the complaint falls within the meaning of performance art, and may eventually fall within the meaning of Happenings.
The artworks also reference, and draw upon, both the art histories and the art theories associated with conceptual art, post-conceptual art, post-minimalism, post-theory art, performance art, activist art, and text-based art. The as-filed Complaint also references, and properly applies, federal rules of civil procedure, federal statutory law, federal constitutional law, state statutory law, and state common law.
The primary artwork that is discussed in this article, and also the as-filed Complaint, both additionally relate to prior artworks by the artist, including, but not limited to, the above-shown oil painting titled “Just Who Has The Illness Of The Mind.” That piece was shown in Chicago in the artist’s second solo exhibition, in 2023, at Engage Projects Gallery, which represents conceptual artists from several countries. That 2023 exhibition, as well as the artist’s first solo exhibition in 2021, were both selected as a “Must See” show by Artforum magazine. Related to this, as of 2025, the London and Berlin-based art consultancy Artfacts ranks the artist among the top 100 living artists worldwide who are associated with the combination of text-based art, post-conceptual art, and activist art.
As documented in the public as-filed Complaint, the two lawyers whose written statements appear in the artworks, both the artwork described in this article, and in the Complaint filed in Federal Court, are Maine attorney Dana E. Prescott, Esq. and Maine attorney Lani Anne Remick, Esq.
